(Noam sports) The gym at Yeshivat Frisch was rocking as the 9-1 basketball Noam Knights faced off against the 7-3 Yavneh Redhawks, for the girls championship in the first game of YMSSA Championship Sunday’s triple header. The Knights were victorious in both of the teams regular meetings by large margins, but the Redhawks were not intimidated and came hyped up and ready to play.
The game started out as a defensive battle with both teams making stops and no one cracked the scoreboard till a few minutes had elapsed. Noam’s Riki Amos was once again a presence inside; altering shots, cleaning up the boards and collecting six of the Knights 13 points in the first quarter. Yavneh answered back with five of Gabriella Butler’s game high 17 points in the first quarter. The second quarter was back and when the halftime buzzer sounded Noam was holding onto a 26-21 lead. With some big buckets from Noa Schulder, Lielle Skoczylas, Elisheva Dresdner and Sage Eis, the Knights slowly built their lead up to 21 points. The Redhawks would not give up; Eden Citron, Ella Scharf and Butler led the charge and cut the Knight’s lead to single digits. However, the continued barrage of Noa’s Schulder (14pts), Amos (13 points) and the tenacious defense of Tiferet Ciner helped secure the win and championship for the Noam Knights.
The Noam faithful returned to the Frisch gym four hours later for the final game of the day as the 9-1 Knights faced the 7-3 Ramaz Rams for the eighth grade championship game. The Knights swept the season series, but the Rams kept it to single digits in the second meeting on December 11. For Noam, two early threes from Judah Suss set the tone Ramaz answered back with a Jared Miller three, but the Knights controlled the paint with Sammy Haberman and Isaac Stepner scoring 10 of the team’s 19 first quarter points. Jacob Gervis, David Kranzler and Charlie Furer (mazel tov Kira, on your bat mitzvah) controlled the pace of the game with the Noam ferocious press as the score was 35-19 at the half. The Knights picked up where they left off raining threes from all over in the second half, bringing the score to 53-33 after three. Ramaz, undaunted by the deficit, kept fighting back, Noah Hiltzik nailed four threes in the fourth quarter, while Emanuel Kushner and Hank Dweck picked up huge buckets down the stretch. Unfortunately for the Rams fans, it was not enough to combat Stepner’s game high 23 point performance as the Knights brought home a second trophy with a 70-55 victory.
